ginsberg

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked (9)

Ginsberg, Allen. "Howl." Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1959. 9-26.

kerouac

"It's nothing but bullshit!" I yelled and suddenly I had the feeling I always got when I tried to explain the Dharma to people, Alvah, my mother, my relatives, girl friends, everybody, they never listened, they always wanted me to listen to them, they knew, I didn't know anything, I was just a dumb young kid and impractical fool who didn't understand the serious significance of this very important, very real world. (110-111)

Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. 1958. New York: Penguin, 1986.

kerouac

I nudged myself closer into the ledge and closed my eyes and thought "Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space," and with horror I remembered the famous Zen saying, "When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing." The saying made my hair stand on end; it had been such cute poetry sitting on Alvah's straw mats. Now it was enough to make my heart pound and my heart bleed for being born at all. (83-84)

Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. 1958. New York: Penguin, 1986.

Wollstonecraft

For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes; whispers Experience. (206)

Wollstonecraft, Mary "Vindication on the Rights of Woman." 1790.

kant

On the other hand, it is a duty to maintain one's life; and, in addition, everyone has also a direct inclination to do so. But on this account the often anxious care which most men take for it has to intrinsic worth, and their maxim has no moral import. They preserve their life as duty requires, no doubt, but not because duty requires. On the other hand, if adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away the relish for life, if the unfortunate one, strong in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or dejected, wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it — not from inclination or fear, but from duty — then his maxim has a moral worth. (292)

Kant, Immanuel. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals.